Friday, August 13, 2010

I have finally returned home from my vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia. Since I love 18th century history Williamsburg is one of the places that we vacation each year. Colonial Williamsburg has such great interactive programs that I could spend the entire week there. My family is not as enamored with Colonial life and they usually have their fill of 18th century history after a couple of days. They prefer to spend their days instead at Busch Gardens.

While I am in Williamsburg I make it a point to stop at Haus Tirol to chat with the owners and purchase some needlework projects. Brittany found some Beatrix Potter Tale of Peter Rabbit patterns and I found some patterns by a mon ami Pierre.

A mon ami Pierre's Antique Lions Et Oiseaux caught my attention. The design was based on an antique French sampler.

The pattern is available from www.amonamipierre.net

I knew that I could not leave Haus Tirol without purchasing the materials to stitch the sampler. The owners were very helpful in selecting fabrics and threads to make my sampler look like an antique. They layed about five different fabrics on the counter in front of me and then pulled the equivalent DMC colors suggested in the pattern. I chose a beautiful 16 count hand dyed Aida (dark taupe with copper shading). The original model was stitched with Anchor floss and an over-dyed green floss that are not available in the US. Since I wanted to work in silk the owners suggested Gloriana Cranberry and The Thread Gatherer Silk 'N Colors Dark Forest over-dyed silks.